Photos that are now evidence in a North Carolina murder trial came from a Fort Bend County surveillance camera intended to stop illegal dumping.

Amanda Perry Hayes, 41, is charged with murder in the 2011 death of Laura Jean Ackerson, whose dismembered body was found July 24, 2011, in Fort Bend County's Oyster Creek near Richmond. Hayes' trial began Jan. 27 in Raleigh, N.C., in Wake County Superior Court.

Her husband, Grant Ruffin Hayes, was tried and convicted in September and is now serving a life sentence in prison.

Officials have said that Grant Hayes killed Ackerson, his 27-year-old former girlfriend and the mother of his two sons, and allegedly cut her body to pieces in North Carolina. He and his wife, Amanda, then hauled the dismembered body to Fort Bend County, and Grant Hayes dumped it in Oyster Creek, near the home of his wife's sister, officials have said.

The couple drove back to North Carolina, where they were arrested July 25, 2011,following the grisly discovery in Oyster Creek. A friend of Ackerson's had reported her missing on July 13, 2011.

Several Fort Bend County officials have testified in Amanda Hayes' trial, which can be viewed on YouTube.

John Schneider, an environmental crimes investigator for the Fort Bend County Attorney's Office, took the stand on Feb. 6.

He testified that, as one of his routine tasks on July 22, 2011, he reviewed photos taken two days earlier by a motion-activated camera in a wooded area near the Grand Parkway and Skinner Lane. The camera is there because the site is a popular spot for illegal dumping, he said.

Schneider said his attention was caught by a series of photos showing a woman unloading boxes from the back of a pickup. The boxes were stamped with the symbol for a corrosive chemical, Schneider said.

Concerned about the chemicals, Schneider said he went back to the scene and found four boxes of muriatic acid under a tree. He hadn't noticed them on his first trip because some logs were in the way, Schneider said.

The investigator testified that three boxes still contained the original two bottles, while the other box had only one bottle. All the bottles appeared to be full, he said.

At some point, he connected the woman in the photos with Amanda Hayes' booking photo, which he had seen in news coverage.

"The hair, the tank top, everything matched," Schneider said.

Raymond Boyer, an employee at a Home Depot store in Katy, testified that he sold four boxes of muriatic acid to a man who said he wanted something to remove a hog odor.

"I said I didn't have anything that would knock that hog odor out," Boyer testified. "I said the only way to get rid of the odor was to dig (the pens) out on a weekly basis. He said, 'Don't you have an acid?' I said, 'Muriatic acid, but that's not going to do it.'"

Asked by the prosecutor if he tried to talk the customer out of buying muriatic acid, Boyer said yes.

"He was adamant about me taking him to the muriatic acid," he said. "I tried to sell him a shovel."

Another witness testified that Ackerson's remains showed signs of acid corrosion on her feet and teeth.